Related resources for this article

Introduction

U.S. Army Signal Corps

“Every age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.” This judgment by the historian Edward Gibbon was echoed in the 20th century by one of the great generals of World War II, Bernard Law Montgomery: “As man became more and more civilized, so wars became more and more frequent.” Civilization’s development is based on the arts of peace, while war brings forth all the violence inherent in human nature. Yet the two have always belonged together, and, as society has been improved by technology, so too has war increased in complexity.

In his book On War, published in 1832, the Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz defined war as an extension of politics. By this he meant that war can be understood as an outgrowth of national policies. Montgomery’s definition agrees: “War is any prolonged conflict between rival political groups by force of arms.” War is also an outgrowth of economic decisions, since most wars have an economic basis. In the 20th century, for example, Adolf Hitler led Germany into a war against the Soviet Union and other eastern European states because he believed it was Germany’s destiny to expand eastward. This decision was both a political and economic one. It was political in that his national policies dictated its necessity—there was no chance that the nations he invaded would have willingly surrendered their territory without a fight. It was economic in that he believed that Germany’s future growth and prosperity depended on adding new territories and their resources.

Kinds of War

If it is true that war is based on both political and economic considerations, then all wars are not the same. There are two main types: international—between nations—and intranational—within a nation.

International Warfare

An international war is fought between two or more states. At the simplest level it is a conflict between two nations. The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s is an example. The two world wars were also international, but they were far more complex: they involved coalitions of allied nations fighting each other.

Wars of imperialism have been fought to establish colonies. Such wars are also international, but they have usually been very one-sided. The European nations that founded colonies during the 19th century had much greater firepower than the peoples whom they conquered. The same was true of England, Spain, Portugal, and France in their colonizing of North America in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Wars of intervention are also international. Two 20th-century examples are the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the first the United States intervened to prop up the government of South Vietnam in what was essentially a civil war between the two halves of one country. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up a puppet regime that had little public support.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The term total war has been applied to international conflicts of great severity. The notion of total war was enunciated by Clausewitz early in the 19th century. By it he meant a war in which all of the enemy’s territory, citizens, and property are attacked. The only war that can be called total in this sense is World War II, during which enormous devastation was wrought on Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan by the contending parties.

Total war also implies the complete mobilization of a society, its citizens, and its industries to provide the military means to wage war. World War II is again an excellent example because the home front—as well as the armed forces of many nations—was nearly exclusively devoted to the production and use of weaponry and all other necessary materials.

Intranational Warfare

An intranational war is an armed conflict between two or more factions within one society or between societies under the same political control. The American Civil War from 1861 to 1865 is probably the best-known example. The Southern states seceded and organized themselves into the Confederate States of America. They considered themselves a separate nation. From the viewpoint of the North, however, the Union had never been dissolved. The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was somewhat different in that it was fought between two political factions, each of which wanted to control the government.

The word revolution is often used to describe a civil war. A revolution is an attempt by political and military forces within a country to overturn the government and replace it. In modern history, one of the most violent revolutions with far-reaching effects occurred in France beginning in 1793. The monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional government installed. This intranational conflict soon led to a series of international wars as all of Europe lined up against France’s revolutionary enthusiasm. The Napoleonic wars, which lasted until 1815, were a direct outgrowth of the French Revolution.

In the 20th century there were several successful revolutionary civil wars. The most influential in terms of its results was the Russian Revolution of 1917. Seven years earlier, Mexico began a revolution that lasted for 10 years. It began with the overthrow of President Porfirio Díaz and continued as a conflict between several political factions. About the same time China was beginning a revolution that finally ended in victory for the Chinese communist forces in 1949. This revolution, however, was interrupted by the two world wars, and at its beginning the communists were not involved. In 1959 Fidel Castro and his followers overthrew the Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista and replaced it with a communist government.

There are some differences between revolution and civil war, however. The American Revolution is not usually called a civil war. Yet it was essentially the same kind of political action as the American Civil War: part of a political body had declared itself independent from the rest and fought to assure that independence. Had the 13 colonies lost, it would have been considered an unsuccessful civil war. Because the Americans won, it is called a revolution.

Many Latin American nations gained their independence from Spain after 1810 through civil wars. Greece gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire after a seven-year struggle that began in 1821. The Vietnam, or Indochina, War in the second half of the 20th century began as a revolution against France and ended as a struggle against the United States.

The colonial wars of independence in the 20th century—often called wars of national liberation—resembled the American Revolution in that they were not entirely intranational. They may have been fought within the geographical boundaries of a society, but the political powers against which the wars were waged were located somewhere else. Algeria’s war for independence was fought within the confines of Algeria, but the political regime against which the Algerians were rebelling was in Paris, France.

Causes of War

There have been several theories put forth to explain war. Each has some validity, but none can offer a comprehensive explanation. One of the most common theories finds the causes of warfare in human nature—in tendencies toward aggression and domination. These tendencies are shared by a number of species in the animal kingdom. Underlying aggression and domination may be the emotions of fear, hostility, rage, and greed.

An emphasis on such human qualities, however, is insufficient. It is as natural for individuals to cooperate as to disagree. But individuals alone do not start wars. This is done by a whole society. So it is perhaps more accurate to ascribe aggressive tendencies to whole societies. This would seem to be borne out by the fact that social groups, even primitive ones, have always armed themselves for defense if not for offense.

Because war is a social act, motives for it must be searched for in the nature of societies. Societies, whether tribes or nations, are groups of people with centers of power. Such centers, usually called governments, help to make societies into units in spite of diversity within them. Just as individuals have needs and problems, so do social units. They have the need to prosper by having sufficient food, clothing, and living space. Deprivation of any of these leads to anxiety and to a search for ways to relieve the deprivation. Overcrowding, for example, may impel a social group to look for more territory. This can result in colonizing uninhabited lands, or it may end in conflict to take away someone else’s living space. Famine may cause foraging parties to seek supplies of food from neighboring peoples.

When Clausewitz defined war as an extension of politics, he meant that war was a use of power to overwhelm another society or political group. Some wars are fought primarily to assert power. This was true of the conquests by Alexander the Great and of the conflicts by which the Roman Empire was created. It was probably true of the growth of the Russian empire as well. Wars fought for religious reasons are likely to be based solely on a desire for power and control.

Because specific wars can so often be traced to political decisions, it is easy to obscure more vital underlying causes. Most such causes are economic in nature. Overcrowding and famine are economic reasons for combat. In the history of the United States, Manifest Destiny, or “the winning of the West,” was underpinned by a determination for economic expansion. Economics played a major role both in causing the American Civil War and in determining its outcome. The South, with its smaller, essentially rural, population, was outmatched by the industrial North.

Both the Spanish-American War and World War II had partial roots in the American desire to play a large economic role in the Western Pacific. Japan, conversely, had as its announced goal in World War II the creation of a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere. One significant reason for founding colonial empires has been a search for natural resources combined with a need for new markets for manufactured goods. Past revolutions and most modern wars of national liberation have their roots in economic injustice: the French Revolution of 1789 and the 20th-century revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba, and Nicaragua are examples.

Stages in the History of Warfare

War has traditionally been a land-based activity. Territory has been either acquired or defended. For this reason, those who have done most of the fighting have been soldiers—members of armies who fought on foot or on horseback.

Horses have been replaced by motorized vehicles, especially tanks, but the principles of land warfare have undergone only one decisive change in the last several thousand years. This change was marked by the invention of gunpowder and its introduction into warfare by the 14th century.

Combat Distances

The difference gunpowder made may be best summed up in the word distance. Prior to the appearance of gunpowder, land battles were mostly hand-to-hand combat. The period before the use of guns can be called the age of edged-weapon warfare: the use of bow and arrow, sword, knife, spear and javelin, and mace (a kind of club). Whether soldiers were on foot, mounted on horseback, or riding in chariots, the weapons were much the same. Battles were fought as close encounters—like two human battering rams trying to beat each other back. As such, battles were generally of short duration because such strenuous effort tired both men and horses quickly.

Gunpowder altered the nature of battle permanently. In the matter of distance, combat did not have to be hand-to-hand. Bullets carry over a long distance compared even to the shot of an arrow. Gunpowder made it possible to kill an enemy hundreds of feet away. The natural outgrowth of gunpowder was the bomb dropped from an airplane, making it possible to destroy property and kill masses of individuals who were never seen at all. Nuclear weapons, of course, are a significant advancement, in terms of warfare, over gunpowder, and they are able to devastate whole countries unseen by those who send them.

In addition to making it possible to fight an unseen enemy, gunpowder also greatly increased the number of casualties in war. It made victimization of civilian populations far more likely than before. Ancient wars were mainly between armies. Damage to civilians and their property were by-products of combat. In edged-weapon warfare the number of battle casualties was normally fairly low in proportion to the number of men engaged. The killing and looting that came afterward often took more lives, as did disease among the wounded. The use of explosives made it possible to inflict many more casualties, even among civilian populations. Thus the numbers killed during World War II were far greater in proportion to the populations of European nations than in previous wars.

From Ancient to Modern Warfare

More than 5,000 years ago, in the wars between civilizations of the Middle East, foot soldiers were the main combatants. This is still true today, except that modern infantrymen are supported by aircraft, artillery, tanks, and all the complexities of modern communications systems.

Between the ancient and modern periods war underwent a number of changes in the way it was fought, and the foot soldier was frequently relegated to a position of secondary value. The first significant change was brought about by the domestication of the horse in about 2000 bc. Early horses were not strong enough to be ridden by armored warriors, but they could pull chariots. With the appearance of the chariot, the foot soldier took a back seat in the military hierarchy for several hundred years.

As has always proved true with the ownership of horses, charioteering was expensive and thereby limited to a small, wealthy segment of the population. By 1000 bc the infantry was once again the main fighting force, but it was soon overtaken again by the horse—this time for riding. The mounted warrior, forerunner of the knight of the Middle Ages, made his appearance about 900 bc. Mounted warriors, the cavalry, dominated the conduct of wars until the introduction of firearms. The only significant interruption in the ascendancy of cavalry came during the time of Rome’s expansion, when the legion—armed foot soldiers—was the chief combatant. In the era of Rome’s decline the empire was overcome by Germanic tribes quite accustomed to horses. Many of these tribes eventually became defenders of the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire; for several centuries they helped prevent a complete takeover by Islam.

During the Middle Ages the mounted warriors were the chief combatants, though they normally had retainers—men who fought as foot soldiers. The knights were the rulers of the Middle Ages, and from their position of wealth and power emerged the social system called feudalism. Nearly all the great armies of the period were dominated by cavalry—not only the Christian knights of Europe but the armies of Islam and the hordes of Mongol warriors from East Asia in the 13th century and afterward.

The resurgence of the foot soldier came with the introduction of gunpowder. Cavalry persisted for centuries, mostly out of romantic attachment to the Middle Ages and partly from the fact that the wealthier classes—who could afford horses—were also the ones who made military policy. The cavalry was not finally undone until World War I, though its drawbacks had been well demonstrated in the Crimean War (the “charge of the Light Brigade”) and the American Civil War.

Modern warfare is a product of the Industrial Revolution. Gunpowder had been around for several centuries, but the introduction of the factory system, mass production, and new kinds of communications technology vastly improved the military potential of Europe, North America, and—before long—Japan. The use of interchangeable parts made possible uniformity in the quality of rifles and handguns, as Samuel Colt demonstrated. Rifles became more accurate at long range. Repeating weapons were improved, and the machine gun was invented in time for use in the American Civil War.

The invention of the screw propeller, combined with the steam engine, brought about a new kind of naval ship and ended the age of sail. Mobile field artillery came into use, assuring the demise of cavalry units until motorized cavalry appeared in the 20th century. Communications and transportation systems were vastly changed: the telegraph and the railroad, to name only two, appeared early in the 19th century. And in the 20th century there was such a proliferation of inventions applied to war that no list could be complete: the airplane and the rocket missile may have been the most decisive.

Another feature of the modern period is the large increase in population in industrialized nations. This greatly helped the factory system to function by providing willing workers of all ages. It also opened the possibility of building large armies through conscription—commonly referred to as the draft. Prussia was the first country in Europe to use conscription extensively, and others—except for Great Britain—soon took up the practice. Britain continued to rely on the navy for military superiority and to maintain its worldwide empire.

After World War II, peace between the Soviet Union and the United States was probably preserved by the Cold War policy of mutual assured destruction: a nuclear aggressor would be annihilated. Hence wars between superpowers or between major military forces—Germany, France, Great Britain, or Japan—may have been relegated to the past. Civil wars and regional conflicts persisted during the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the demise of communism in eastern Europe, the Cold War suddenly ended. New regional and ethnic conflicts replaced it, however—notably in Yugoslavia and some of the former republics of the Soviet Union. The end of superpower tension shifted responsibility for handling smaller disputes to the United Nations.

Generalship: Arts of War

The familiar saying, “War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men,” has been ascribed to the French politician Talleyrand. It has often been used to prove that politicians, not generals, are the ones who should be making policies leading either to war or peace. But once war is imminent, it is the generals on whom civilian governments rely for its conduct.

The Greek word for general is strategos, easily recognizable as the source of the word strategy. The basic meaning of strategy is “art of generalship.” The term emerged in its strictly military sense during the 18th century, when warfare was still relatively simple and generals could be entrusted with the direction of campaigns and battles because they were experts at warfare. Closely associated with strategy are two other aspects of military planning—tactics and logistics.

Strategy

In American football the goal is victory by outscoring the opposing team. The game plan to achieve the goal is strategy; the quarterback sneak may be a tactic within the overall strategy. Strategy in war deals with the overall planning of campaigns prior to engagements on a battlefield. Tactics concern the actual maneuvers, the specific actions used to win a battle. During World War II the Allies realized that the only way to defeat Germany was to land masses of soldiers on the continent of Europe to confront the enemy directly. To implement this goal a strategy was devised that resulted in the D-Day assault on German-occupied France—June 6, 1944. Within this overall strategy were a number of sub-strategies: where to make the landing, what diversionary measures to pursue, and where to drop paratroopers behind German lines. Once the battle for Normandy was engaged, it was mostly up to the commanders on the scene to improvise the tactics to achieve victory. The Germans, of course, devised counter-strategies in attempts to ward off the attack and to prevent it from being successful once it had begun.

Throughout most of the centuries of warfare, military men have devised their own strategies and insisted they were the best. In the 5th century bc the Chinese general Sunzi wrote The Art of War, one of the earliest compilations on strategy. His insistence on the political aspect of war was influential on later generals. Altogether, Sunzi set forth 13 principles of generalship. Much later Napoleon decided there were at least 115 maxims needed to guide generals. In the United States the Civil War general Nathan Bedford Forrest needed only one: get there first with the most men. He was in overall agreement with the Prussian Karl von Clausewitz, for whom defeat of the enemy’s armed forces on the battlefield was the heart of strategy.

Although generals have long disagreed, most principles of strategy include clarifying the objective of the campaign; unity of command; mass concentration of force; the effort to achieve surprise; proper movement of forces, their security from surprise attack, sabotage, or subversion; and simplicity of operation.

In The Foundations of the Science of War (1926), the British military theoretician John F.C. Fuller stated that until the emergence of modern warfare a conflict was often decided by the killing or capture of either of the opposing generals. This was because, as Fuller noted, “the general was the plan.” Alexander the Great, for example, planned battles and then led his troops into combat to assure the proper execution of his strategy. Even as late as the American Civil War, generals were often in the forefront of battle. Stonewall Jackson died from a wound incurred on the battlefield of Chancellorsville. Napoleon, one of war’s leading strategists, often surveyed the battle scene with his advisers from the top of a nearby hill.

Modern warfare has permanently altered the nature of strategy. One general alone no longer plans wars, campaigns, or battles. Specialized staffs, of which the Prussian General Staff was one of the earliest and best, are in charge of strategy. Many planning functions must be delegated. Strategy creation now more resembles the planning sessions of a major corporation.

Modern warfare—with its land, air, and sea components—has greatly enlarged the field of operations beyond a single battlefield. High commanders now reach their decisions and make their plans far removed from the site of combat. In the small wars of the 21st century, campaigns may be planned and carried out much as they were in World War I. The major powers and their allies, however, have subdivided the making of strategy into a variety of components, geographically separated and connected by intricate networks of communication.

The size and scope of modern warfare has necessarily drawn many nonmilitary government officials into strategy making. What is called grand strategy has become almost the same thing as statesmanship and diplomacy. Many nongovernmental agencies and businesses have also been drawn into planning for war. During the Cold War the United States and Soviet Union each had a large military-industrial complex to devise strategy and provide weaponry. With the end of the Cold War both of these nations reduced their military budgets.

Tactics

While strategy may be limited to a specific number of principles or commonsense goals, tactics is a very broad area of military activity. Tactics, sometimes called “operational strategy,” involves the implementation of strategy by every conceivable means, some quickly devised on the spot.

Tactics deals with all aspects of a battle. It includes the placement of troops on a battlefield, choice of the ground on which to fight, use of the right weapons at the right time, secrecy, spying on the enemy, reconnaissance missions, prisoner interrogation, and maintaining security. Historically three different components of tactics developed: formation, attack, and offense and defense. All of the tactics described below have been severely compromised by modern firepower, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism.

Tactics of formation

In traditional warfare victory usually came to the general who could move his army at maximum speed and who could group his forces so they could strongly support each other and do the greatest damage to the enemy. To attain speed, armies marched in columns normally four men wide. In battle the troops were formed in a line. For a column to become a line, the commander need only give a “right face” order, and the column becomes a line four men deep. The column is more useful for marching because it can attain rapid forward mobility. In battle, however, it is handicapped by its narrow front—too easily enveloped from either side. The line, in contrast, lacks rapid forward mobility, but its breadth makes it more suitable for deployment on a battlefield.

In addition to the line and the column, enclosed formations have also been used in the past—either a hollow square or hollow circle. With these formations warriors faced out in all directions against attack. Such formations were difficult to maneuver and liable to being surrounded by a superior force.

Tactics of attack

Direct frontal attack is the simplest way to go into battle. It can also be the most disastrous. During the Second Punic War the armies of Carthage met those of Rome at Cannae, Italy, in 216 bc. The Roman forces were in line formation. Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, had the center of his infantry in a crescent formation opposite. As the Romans attacked, Hannibal allowed this infantry crescent to reverse itself. Into the space created by the reversal of the crescent ran the Roman troops, only to be enveloped by the Carthaginians as they swooped around the Roman flanks in what quickly turned from a crescent into a circle. At the battle of Marathon in 490 bc during the Persian Wars, the Greek commander Miltiades had dealt with the Persian ground troops in almost the same manner.

One of the most successful tactics ever developed was the flank attack—coming at the enemy from both sides. If a flank attack works, the results are much like what Hannibal achieved at Cannae—complete envelopment. Such an attack can be prevented if a general chooses a site where his flanks are protected.

Every general has known that fighting spirit in his troops can overcome otherwise insurmountable tactical problems. There have been many instances where superior numbers were defeated not by military might but by loss of will. They lost because they were convinced that their cause had become hopeless.

Tactics of offense and defense

Whether to attack or defend may be a question either of strategy or tactics. In overall planning, such as in the fabled Trojan War, the strategy was to defend the city. During the second of the Persian Wars, defense became a tactic that almost worked at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 bc. Thermopylae is a narrow mountain pass 4.5 miles (7 kilometers) long, located about 85 miles (137 kilometers) north of Athens. The Spartan commander Leonidas held out for four days against the much larger Persian force, knowing that he could not be attacked from the sides. Nor could he take the offensive on open ground. He and his men lost the battle because they were betrayed by a Greek traitor, who showed the Persians another pass.

Nations that start wars normally go on the offense immediately, as the Japanese did by their attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II. In Europe Hitler had taken the offensive when he attacked Poland in 1939, launched his blitzkrieg against western Europe in 1940, and put Operation Barbarossa in motion against the Soviet Union in 1941. In all cases strategies of offense demanded tactics to match. As the war continued the Allies passed from tactics of defense to strategies of offense, while among the Germans, Italians, and Japanese the situation was reversed. When strategies fail, makeshift tactics must replace them.

Two of the most disastrous mistakes in devising tactics were made in the 20th century. During World War I the generals on both sides were convinced that new offensive firepower would quickly prevail and end the war in a few months. The reality was that this firepower turned the war into a four-year stalemate in the vicinity of the Marne River in France. Not until late in the war, when tanks took the field, was the deadlock broken and the indecisive conflict brought to a close. At the start of World War II, the Allied generals in Europe were sure that their defensive capabilities were such that no enemy—meaning the Germans—could breach them. Yet Hitler sent his tank divisions, armies, and air force into Belgium on May 10, and the Germans occupied Paris on June 14.

In both cases the generals were wrong because they had not learned the lessons of past wars. The Europeans of 1914 had failed adequately to study the American experiences of the Civil War, in which modern trench warfare started, and in the second great war the generals looked back too eagerly at World War I without considering the technological advances that had occurred in the intervening years.

Logistics: Sinews of War

In the summer of 1944 the United States Third Army, commanded by General George Patton, was moving speedily across France when it suddenly got bogged down. The problem was not opposition from the German army. It was a lack of fuel for the vehicles. The army had gotten so far ahead of its source of supply that it had to stop and wait for fuel to catch up. The part of military science that takes care of supply, maintenance, and other services is called logistics.

In studying warfare the emphasis on combat easily obscures the fact that wars must be administered: they must be organized so that every need of the armed forces is met. Without such administration the whole war effort can fail, and administration costs a great deal of money. It is little wonder that the Roman statesman Cicero noted that “Endless money is the sinews of war.” Another well-known remark makes the same point: “An army travels on its stomach.”

Military personnel have the same needs as civilians—and more. They need food and shelter in addition to their uniforms and weapons. They need transportation, and the modes of transport need fuel—whether forage for animals or gasoline for trucks, tanks, ships, and airplanes. The wounded need medical treatment and other services.

It is the task of logistics to arrange for and provide all the support that armies, navies, marines, and air forces need in war or peace. The four basic elements of logistics are supply, transportation, facilities, and personnel services.

Supply

Supply is the function of providing all the material needs of armed forces. The logistics of supply includes all stages in the provision of military material: design and development, manufacture, purchase and procurement, storage, distribution, maintenance, repair, salvage, and disposal. Subsidiary to these supply activities are such other services as testing, inspection, packing and packaging, warehousing, contracting, pricing, determination of requirements, allocation of raw materials, stock and inventory control, quality control, and requisitioning. In other words, the armed forces have complete marketing systems of their own for the procurement and distribution of goods.

The supply function can be divided into four phases. First is the administrative task of determining requirements and the planning of production, procurement, and distribution. Second is the phase involving design, development, and production of specific items. Third is the acquisition of finished products from the producing agencies or companies. Last is the actual distribution of material and the servicing of it while in use. Some items—such as food, clothing, and fuel—are not serviced or maintained; they are merely used and replaced.

The categories of items with which supply deals are such life necessities as food, clothing, water, shelter, and medical supplies; vehicles and fuel; communications equipment; and the materials of combat, including weaponry, ammunition, and defensive armament. During the centuries of traditional warfare food and forage made up the bulk of supplies, and forage was by far the greatest bulk because animals (horses and mules) need more food than people. In modern war forage has been displaced by fuel. The demand for food and water remains a constant, though the quality and amount of food consumed by modern armed forces are vastly superior to what was available previously.

Transportation

Until the early 19th century armies traveled on foot or by ship. The introduction of the railroad speeded troop movements. As early as 1859 France was able to move 600,000 men and 130,000 horses by rail during the Franco-Austrian War. The vast rail superiority of the North in the American Civil War was one aspect of the region’s great economic power compared to that of the South. Motorized transport and the airplane were added in the 20th century.

It was the airplane that freed military movement for small units and limited cargo from the confines of rough terrain and long distances. Air transport was vital to the Allies fighting Japan in World War II. Roads and sea lanes were controlled by Japan. In many places, such as Burma, terrain was almost impassable. Another significant use of air transport was the Berlin air lift of 1948–49, when the Soviet Union prohibited land transport from reaching the city (seeblockade). For short distances helicopters are now used to carry small units into battle and to bring the wounded out. Helicopter use was prominent in the Vietnam War.

Transport also includes provision of fuel and the building of roads, bridges, and landing strips. One of the Roman Empire’s more enduring contributions to Europe was the construction of good roads for its legions to march on. In the United States the Interstate Highway System was built with military movement in mind, as were the German autobahns of the 1930s.

Facilities

As the Industrial Revolution transformed warfare, so too did it enlarge the sphere of logistics concerned with providing places for troops to live and work. Armies far from home, as the Roman legions often were, built fortified camps. In the British colonies of North America, troops were often installed in private homes, which proved a distinct annoyance to the homeowners and provided one of the grievances leading to the American Revolution.

Modern military forces have added greatly to the number and kinds of facilities. Today’s military establishments are among the world’s largest property owners. Armies, navies, and air forces own and operate factories, arsenals, laboratories, railroads, shipyards, airports, warehouses, supermarkets, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, homes for the aged, schools, colleges, and many other types of structures. In addition to these are traditional camps or forts with all the barracks and other necessary accommodations.

Personnel services

One of the most vital services an armed force performs is care of the wounded. They must be removed as quickly as possible from a battle zone and brought to field hospitals. Additional care is provided by fully staffed hospitals away from the war zone.

Personnel services are activities designed to help members of the armed services perform their duties efficiently. These services often require adding people who do not belong to the fighting force: physicians, nurses, chaplains, and teachers, among others.

This aspect of logistics includes such administrative activities as recruitment, induction, classification, assignment, record keeping, career management, and separation. During a period of enlistment there are medical, religious, informational, counseling, educational, recreational, and financial services provided.

Naval Logistics

Keystone/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

In an army the basic fighting unit is the individual soldier. In a navy it is the ship as a unit that moves, fights, and needs supplies. The individual crew member has no separate role. The great size of modern warships makes them an essential component of their own logistical support. They are able to carry large amounts of food, fuel, ammunition, and other goods, and they provide on-board facilities for personnel services. Ships that relied on steam needed coaling stations for refueling. The same is true of ships relying on fuel oil. With nuclear-powered ships the refueling problem is avoided, but ships must still put into port for other supplies unless they are supplied by other ships while at sea. Ships must return to port, of course, for repair and maintenance.

Modern navies have, in addition to their fighting ships, a large number of auxiliary vessels. Some of these are for supply purposes, and they enable a fleet to remain at sea for indefinite periods of time. While the fleet may remain at sea, however, personnel are rotated in service.

Laws of War

War is a breakdown of international or national order. Its inherent violence represents the extremes of lawlessness. Nevertheless, throughout the centuries there developed customs, conventions, and laws (not always enforceable) by which the conduct of wars has been regulated. These laws regulate the relations between nations at war and the relations of belligerents with neutral powers.

Since World War II it has become more necessary than before to regulate local conflicts—such as the Arab-Israeli wars—and internal aggression—such as the Korean War—to keep them from having a wider impact and to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. Yet wars fought since 1945 have been probably more lawless in their conduct than earlier conflicts. This has been especially true of such internal conflicts as the Vietnam War, the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, and the long conflict between Iran and Iraq. It has proved nearly impossible to enforce laws of war during or after revolutions.

Codification

The first real possibility of international law came into being with the emergence of a community of independent nations at the end of the Middle Ages. The existence of such a community set the stage for the best-known exposition of international law thus far published: Hugo Grotius’s On the Law of War and Peace, published in 1625. His exposition of the law of war has continued to influence the growth of international law to the present.

Since the middle of the 19th century, the laws of war have been codified in a number of conventions. Most notable are those of Geneva, Switzerland, and The Hague, Netherlands. The first Geneva Convention took place in 1864 and dealt with the protection of the wounded in battle. The Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907 codified much of the existing law about war and neutrality. In 1909 the Declaration of London codified many aspects of naval warfare. In 1929 a Geneva Convention on prisoners of war was added. Beginning in 1868 a series of conventions banned the use of certain weapons in wartime. The best known of these is the Geneva Protocol on Gas Warfare of 1925. It prohibits the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases and of bacteriological methods of warfare. This law did not prevent the use of such weapons in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or in the Iran-Iraq War.

In 1948, subsequent to the massive killing of civilians by the Germans in World War II, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Convention on Genocide (seegenocide; Holocaust). In 1954 a special convention to protect cultural property in time of war was signed at The Hague. This was aimed at preventing the destruction or confiscation of works of art by belligerents as had happened during World War II.

The nuclear and space ages brought new military problems to the fore. In 1963 a treaty was signed to prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater. A 1967 treaty forbids the stationing of nuclear weapons in outer space. It also prohibits the use of the moon for military purposes. A similar treaty of 1971 forbids placing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor.

Starting a War

Among ancient civilizations certain formalities were expected of states in initiating wars. In Greece and Rome a just war was one in which the party starting it had adequate cause and motives. From the 18th century through World War I, the concept of a just war was abandoned except in theory, and nations became the judges of their own activities in matters of war. The use of a declaration of war was for the most part abandoned. Although The Hague Convention of 1909 required a formal declaration of war, this requirement was ignored by the Germans, Italians, and Japanese in World War II. When the United States declared war in 1941, it was only fulfilling a legal formality, because the nation had already been attacked.

Conduct of War

The rules on the conduct of war give a belligerent party powers far beyond those allowed in peacetime. These rules include the power to invade and occupy enemy territory, to destroy enemy armed forces and warmaking potential, to requisition or confiscate certain kinds of property, and to search and capture some neutral vessels at sea.

Parties engaged in war are required to adhere to certain standards in the treatment of prisoners and in dealings with neutral nations. The parties are not allowed to confiscate civilian property wantonly, nor are they allowed to mistreat civilian populations. The use of certain chemical or bacteriological agents is also prohibited. Since the start of the 20th century, all of these rules for the conduct of war have been broken.

Ending a War

Hostilities in war are concluded by an armistice, while the war itself is terminated by a treaty. Official fighting in World War I ended on November 11, 1918, when the armistice was declared. The peace itself was not established until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, and it did not go into effect until January 10, 1920.

There have been many occasions in which treaties have not been used. After one nation has conquered and annexed another, no treaty is needed to conclude peace. Revolutions do not necessarily end with a peace treaty, though the American Revolution did. Internal revolutions involve a change of government. A treaty is unnecessary because the former government has ceased to exist or has gone into exile.

Under 19th-century international law the end of war restored peaceful conditions, freed prisoners of war, restored property, and reestablished treaties in force before hostilities began. There were differences of opinion about whether postwar territorial boundaries were fixed by right of military occupation or restored to a prewar position. The Hague convention upheld the latter, though might has normally prevailed. In any case, treaties of peace usually have determined boundaries.

Literature of War

War is perhaps among the most intriguing of human activities. As such it has engaged the minds and imaginations of authors as long as there has been written language. Many of the world’s masterpieces have war as their subject. Some of the literature, in fact, has its origins in stories and legends that circulated prior to the written word.

Not all of the literature is fiction. Many outstanding accounts have been written by historians. One of the earliest, and still one of the best, is The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides in the 5th century bc. The trilogy by Bruce Catton (Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road, and A Stillness at Appomattox) is one of the most brilliant and moving accounts of the American Civil War.

The literature of war is so vast that it would take a full-length book to list it all. For readers interested in fiction works, there is a useful volume by Myron Smith titled War Story: an Annotated Bibliography of Military Fiction, published in 1980. For readers of poetry the Oxford Book of War Poetry (2008), edited by Jon Stallworthy, is a very adequate compilation. The nonfiction works mentioned below are a sampling of general books. Articles on the major wars have their own bibliographies.

Fiction

The preeminent war novel, and one of the world’s great fiction masterpieces, is Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace (1865–69), set in the period of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. More than a fascinating novel with dozens of characters, it is an insightful interpretation of the historical process as well. No later war novel has been so ambitious in its scope, though Herman Wouk’s two-volume work The Winds of War and War and Remembrance (1971, 1978), on World War II, comes close in the panoramic sweep of its story and in the interweaving of real and fictional persons and events.

Prior to the 20th century, fiction about a specific war did not usually appear until many years after the event. Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, for example, was not published until 1895, 30 years after the American Civil War. World War I changed that. For Europeans it was such a traumatic experience that books began appearing about it even while the fighting was going on. Sigmund Freud’s nonfiction essay “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” appeared in 1915. Novels began appearing within a very few years. The four-volume series Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford was written in the 1920s. All Quiet on the Western Front, probably the best-known novel on World War I, was published by Erich Maria Remarque in 1929. Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms came out the same year, and his For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) was off the press almost as soon as the guns were silent in the Spanish Civil War.

World War II novels began appearing shortly after 1945. Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor, which portrayed the war from a British perspective, came out in the 1950s. There were many novels about the American involvement. Norman Mailer had already published The Naked and the Dead in 1948, and From Here to Eternity by James Jones came out in 1951. Other books about the war include James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific (1947), Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny (1951), Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969).

Nonfiction

Two very readable and comprehensive general books about warfare are Bernard Montgomery’s A History of Warfare (1983), which contains a selective but very useful bibliography, and Soldiers: a History of Men in Battle by John Keegan and Richard Holmes (1986). Keegan’s earlier book, The Face of Battle (1976), gave an excellent account of war as seen by those who did the fighting.

The 20th-century military British theoreticians John F.C. Fuller and Basil H. Liddell Hart each wrote several well-researched books. Fuller published The Decisive Battles of the Western World in three volumes (1954–56). Hart’s books include The Remaking of Modern Armies (1928) and The Revolution in Warfare (1947). Winston Churchill wrote histories of both world wars: The World Crisis 1911–1918 (1931) and The Second World War (six volumes, 1948–53).

It’s here: the NEW Britannica Kids website!

We’ve been busy, working hard to bring you new features and an updated design. We hope you and your family enjoy the NEW Britannica Kids. Take a minute to check out all the enhancements!

The same safe and trusted content for explorers of all ages.

Accessible across all of today's devices: phones, tablets, and desktops.

Improved homework resources designed to support a variety of curriculum subjects and standards.

A new, third level of content, designed specially to meet the advanced needs of the sophisticated scholar.

Want to see it in action?

Start a free trial

E-mail

To

From

Sender NamePlease enter your name.

Sender EmailPlease enter a valid email address.

Translate this page

Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. Please note: Text within images is not translated, some features may not work properly after translation, and the translation may not accurately convey the intended meaning. Britannica does not review the converted text.

After translating an article, all tools except font up/font down will be disabled. To re-enable the tools or to convert back to English, click "view original" on the Google Translate toolbar.